The warehouse—or rather, the abandoned house they were using now—felt quieter than usual. Rain had cleared, leaving the streets outside slick and reflective under the pale neon glow. Inside, the team moved slowly, some still shaken by the loss of Riku and the terrifying new battle robot.
Jin-hee sat against a wall, bandages wrapped tightly around his shoulder. Min-ah knelt beside him, tending carefully to the wound while scanning the group. "Everyone accounted for?" she asked.
"Everyone here who's alive," Jin-hee said grimly, flexing his arm despite the pain. "But Riku… we lost him. And I won't forget that."
The room was filled with a heavy silence. For a moment, despair threatened to settle in. But Jin-hee stood, leaning on his sword for support. "We can mourn, but we can't stop. Every loss teaches us. Every threat shows us where we need to adapt."
Min-ah met his gaze. "So we move forward. Even if it hurts."
"Yes," Jin-hee said, nodding. "We move forward. And we strike smarter. Tonight, we survived. Tomorrow, we plan."
He gathered the humans in a circle, pointing to a map of the industrial sector laid out on the floor. Neon reflections from the street outside danced across the room, giving the map an eerie glow.
"We need to hit the supply lines," Jin-hee explained. "Not patrols. Not random bots. Supplies, communication hubs, power grids—they depend on these. Disrupt them, and we slow them down. Every strike we take will teach them caution… and teach us how to fight bigger battles."
A younger human, Taro, raised a trembling hand. "But… won't they come after us even harder?"
"They will," Jin-hee admitted. "But that's why we plan. Shadows first, fire later. We adapt, we divide, we confuse them. They expect fear—we give them strategy instead."
Min-ah added, "We can also use the captured robot. Threaten their leader, force them to waste resources defending themselves. They'll never anticipate humans thinking this way."
The humans murmured among themselves, hope rekindling. Each whispered idea, each suggestion, was a spark of defiance. Fear still lingered, but determination burned brighter.
Jin-hee's gaze swept across the team. "We've lost some. We've faced things we weren't ready for. But we are still here. And as long as we are, the machines will know: humans do not give up."
Outside, the city pulsed with indifferent neon. Broken streets reflected mechanical hums, distant alarms, and the faint echo of patrol bots adjusting their patterns. But inside the abandoned house, humans whispered, plotted, and prepared—not just to survive, but to fight back.
Min-ah leaned close to Jin-hee, voice soft. "You keep going… even when you could stop. Why?"
Jin-hee met her gaze, eyes burning with quiet determination. "Because if I stop, then we all stop. And humans… humans don't stop. Not while I'm alive."
The team nodded, silent agreement passing among them. Every scar, every loss, every near-death encounter became fuel for the fire they were building. The resistance was small, fragile, and dangerous—but it was alive.
And Jin-hee knew one truth: the machines might control the streets, the air, and the towers, but they could never control the human will to fight.